Raising Wages

Jobs and Economy

House Democrats passed the Raise the Wage Act to provide up to 33 million workers a pay raise; the Paycheck Fairness Act to ensure equal pay for equal work; and funding legislation to help rebuild our nation’s infrastructure.

Creating jobs and rebuilding our economy continues to be Democrats’ top priority. Even as our economy recovers, too many Americans are not seeing that recovery in their daily lives. That has to change, and that’s why Democrats are fighting for a better deal for middle class families and small businesses. We are pursuing a Make It In America plan to address the current economic challenges facing working families by investing in three core areas: education, to ensure all Americans have the skills needed to get good-paying jobs; infrastructure, which will create jobs and better connect communities by repairing roads and bridges and expanding high-speed internet access; and entrepreneurship, to encourage Americans to start their own businesses by streamlining regulations, providing access to affordable health care and retirement savings, and increasing access to credit and loans.

Rather than work with Democrats to build on the economic progress made under the Obama Administration, President Trump has failed to put forward a single jobs bill. He hasn’t taken action to support job creation, and in fact, his budget would slash investments in infrastructure, education, research, and other areas that support job creation. Forecasters have lowered growth estimates; despite promises to the contrary, companies like Ford and Carrier are shipping jobs overseas; and 2017 saw the first four consecutive months since 2012 of the economy adding fewer than 200,000 new private sector jobs.

In contrast, Democrats have a strong record of job creation. In 2009, when faced with the deepest recession in generations, Democrats passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which cut taxes for 95% of American families and led the way to 2,562,000 new private sector jobs by the end of his term. Democrats also enacted Wall Street reform legislation that restored common sense rules to protect families and our economy from the excesses of big banks and help prevent a financial collapse from happening again. This law, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, aims to protect middle class Americans by increasing consumer protections and preventing taxpayers from having to bailout financial institutions. Today, Congressional Republicans are undermining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which works to protect consumers following the financial crisis. Democrats will continue to defend the work of the CFPB as Republicans seek to strip away these protections.

Democrats believe that small businesses are the backbone of our economy, working to grow and create jobs. Democrats have pushed for legislation to prevent multinational corporations from outsourcing jobs overseas, while giving tax credits to businesses who hire new employees here in the United States, as well as restore the flow of credit to small businesses so they can grow and create jobs, and extend the research and development tax credit that encourages innovation and job creation.

The July jobs report tells the story of American economic resilience in the face of serious challenges and a failure by the current Administration to build on the policies that brought about our recovery from the Great Recession.

Sunday marked 200 days of a Democratic Majority in the House of Representatives, and in that time, Democrats have made significant progress on behalf of the American people. Democrats have spent the past 200 days advancing our For the People agenda: taking action to lower health care costs and the price of prescription drugs, raise wages, and clean up corruption. Take a look at how Democrats have made progress For the People:

Once again, the monthly jobs report shows our economy’s resilience. But the jobs number still fails to capture the anxiety of workers and their families barely getting by as wage growth once again fell short. Too many of our people have lost hope that they will get ahead.

Imposing blanket tariffs on Mexico will hurt American workers, particularly those working in the auto industry and for its parts suppliers, and do nothing to solve the immigration challenges created by this Administration's policies.

I am proud to bring the Consumers First Act to the Floor today to reaffirm the mission and authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and reverse efforts by the Trump Administration to undermine its work on behalf of the American people.

The monthly jobs report, released today, shows a continuation of an economic trajectory that reaches back through 103 consecutive months of positive job growth. But these job figures don’t tell the whole story, as wages aren’t growing fast enough to allow millions of workers to keep pace and feel that real economic security is within reach.

The March jobs report shows once again that, while our economy continues its longest period of continuous growth dating back nearly a decade to President Obama’s recovery program, the central challenges we faced at the beginning of the Trump Administration remain.

Today’s jobs report has to be viewed in the context that last month, 800,000 Americans workers effectively had their jobs taken away and were denied two paychecks, forcing them to go to food banks to feed their families or to take out risky payday loans as a result of President Trump’s shutdown strategy.

I want to thank [Education and Labor Committee Chair] Bobby Scott for his leadership. Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, who as she said, the last time we were in charge, one of the first things we did was raise minimum wage. It was not enough then. It is clearly not enough now.